GIANT by Vijay Medtia – Inspector Shaktawat Thriller

GIANT, 2nd Inspector Shaktawat Thriller, by Vijay Medtia opens on a half-built tower on the edge of Santacruz and Andheri. Twelve floors sanctioned on paper, six standing in reality. It is January 1999, the mud smells of wet cement and diesel, and a young woman in a faded red kurta lies near an unfinished lift shaft. Inspector Ajay Shaktawat ducks under the police tape, and within a page you know exactly where you are and what kind of book you are holding.

GIANT- 2nd Inspector Shaktawat Thriller by Vijay Medtia is a grounded police procedural set in a Mumbai still recovering from 1992 and 1993, a city building again “as if concrete could seal old wounds.” Mobile phones are an executive’s toy, people memorise numbers for the STD booth, and evidence is gathered on foot, one witness at a time. It is a crime novel about a strangled woman, but it is also about an honest man discovering how tall the walls around money can be.

The Case at a Glance

The victim is Tulsi Chavan, a thirty-two-year-old catering manager from Kolhapur who learned English from borrowed books and worked her way up. Before she died, she had been arguing about missing payments. Now large sums have disappeared from the company, the accountant is nowhere to be found, and the business turns out to belong to a vast conglomerate called the Giant Corporation, whose owner is very hard to reach.

What begins as a possible crime of passion widens into something colder. Shaktawat is warned off. His family is put at risk. And the pressure comes not only from criminals but from people who wear suits, sit in glass towers, and know ministers by their first names.

Inspector Ajay Shaktawat: A Hero Who Pays for His Principles

Shaktawat is the reason this series works. He is not a genius with a trick memory or a loner with a tragic past. He is a forty-two-year-old inspector who is ten kilos overweight, keeps his office in chaos, cannot afford his own flat, and still believes that a murdered woman deserves the truth. When he chases a suspect through a lane full of buffaloes and milk cans, he runs out of breath and promises himself the gym. It is funny, and it makes him real.

What lifts GIANT above a standard whodunit is the price Shaktawat pays for being honest. Mumbai keeps offering him the easy road, and Medtia makes that temptation feel genuine. Shaktawat does the maths. He thinks about his rented flat and his children’s future. He is tempted, and the reader feels it. That inner struggle gives the book its moral spine.

The Marriage Running Alongside the Murder

The domestic story deserves special mention. His wife Nisha has been offered a branch manager’s post in Jaipur, and one dinner scene, with overcooked dal, a creaking ceiling fan and an envelope on the table, is among the best-written chapters in the book. Neither of them is the villain. She has given eighteen years to his job; he cannot walk away from a case. Medtia writes the argument with restraint and fairness, and it stayed with me longer than some of the action scenes.

The Team at Santacruz Station

Shaktawat is surrounded by a well-drawn supporting cast, and their banter supplies much of the book’s warmth:

1. Anil Mishra, the forensic lead nicknamed “the computer,” is Shaktawat’s equal and closest friend. His scientific patience balances the inspector’s gut instinct.
2. PSI Rehman is large, blunt and always ready for action, and he would happily eat his way through the surveillance on a catering company.
3. PSI Shinde provides the comic relief, from matchmaking to handing out chocolate bars after a tense moment.
4. Pooja Dixit, the young liaison officer hoping to join homicide, grows in confidence across the book and earns her place.
5. DCP Malhotra, the boss caught between his best officer and the people above him, is drawn with more sympathy than the role usually gets.

The station also has Mrs D’Souza at reception in her khaki sari, the kind of small detail that makes a police station feel lived in.

Plot and Pacing: A Slow Burn That Tightens

Medtia does not hurry. The first third is careful detective work: witness statements from waiters, a landlady who “doesn’t gossip,” call records, a diary with one cryptic final entry. Readers who enjoy the mechanics of an investigation will appreciate how clues are gathered and tested rather than handed over.

The cleverest structural choice is how the novel plays with the idea of a solved case. Answers arrive, and they look tidy, and Shaktawat keeps asking why they look so tidy. Each time the investigation seems to settle, it shifts again. Then the pace changes. A car chase on an industrial road at night, an ambush at a café and a tense meeting at the Taj bar push the second half forward with real urgency. By the final act, the threads of missing invoices, shareholdings and unseen enemies come together in a way that feels earned.

Writing Style: Plain Sentences, Sharp Images

Medtia writes clean, unfussy prose. His sentences are short and his chapters move quickly, but he has a gift for one precise image that fixes a scene: a watchman whose spine is “curved like a question mark,” chawls “stacked like old filing cabinets,” a building the colour of stale tea. He layers in smells of masala chai, fried cumin and diesel until Mumbai becomes almost a character.

There is also a dry humour running underneath. Shaktawat considers joining a laughing club and decides the laughers would make him cry. These touches keep a dark story from becoming heavy.

Themes Worth Thinking About

• Integrity versus survival: What does honesty cost an ordinary policeman, and who pays the bill?
• Power and access: The rich are protected by layers of lawyers, secretaries and guards, and the book makes those layers visible.
• The price of the job at home: The novel treats a police officer’s family as more than a backdrop.
• Ordinary victims: Tulsi Chavan is remembered as a person with a passbook full of small, steady savings, not just a body on a site.

The Inspector Shaktawat Series and Vijay Medtia’s Other Novels

Vijay Medtia is a UK-based novelist and short story writer who returns to India regularly for inspiration. GIANT is his sixth novel. The first Shaktawat book, The Lost Woman of Santacruz, has drawn interest from an Indian production house for a film or crime series. His other titles include:

• The House of Subadar
• The Missing Husband
• The Lost Woman of Santacruz (Inspector Shaktawat #1)
• In God’s Country, Karwar
• Ring Twice for Mrs Naren

You can read GIANT- 2nd Inspector Shaktawat Thriller by Vijay Medtia as a standalone, since the case is self-contained, but reading the first book will deepen your feel for Shaktawat’s family situation.

Who Should Read This Book

This is for readers who enjoy procedurals where the detective is honest and human rather than superhuman, and for anyone who likes crime fiction rooted in a specific time and place. If you are looking for an Indian detective to follow across a series, GIANT- 2nd Inspector Shaktawat Thriller by Vijay Medtia makes a strong case for Shaktawat.

If You Enjoyed GIANT, Try These

1. Midnight at Malabar House by Vaseem Khan: Bombay police procedural with a principled detective, Persis Wadia, and powerful people who would rather the truth stayed buried.
2. The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra by Vaseem Khan: A Mumbai inspector, a stubborn sense of justice and a warm supporting cast.
3. Sacred Games by Vikram Chandra: The sprawling, definitive Mumbai novel of police, gangsters and power.
4. The Perfect Murder by H.R.F. Keating: The first Inspector Ghote case, classic Bombay detection with gentle humour.
5. A Rising Man by Abir Mukherjee: A historical Indian crime novel where a murder leads into the corridors of power.
6. The Case of the Missing Servant by Tarquin Hall: A lighter but sharply observed Indian detective series.

Final Verdict

GIANT- 2nd Inspector Shaktawat Thriller by Vijay Medtia is an absorbing, humane crime novel that understands the most dangerous enemies rarely announce themselves. It combines patient detection, vivid 1999 Mumbai and a moving portrait of a marriage under strain, and it leaves you eager for Shaktawat’s next case.